Thursday, December 10, 2015

Per Cardinal Koch (link to report), the RCC affirms salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ and says that Jews can be saved without explicitly confessing Christ:
"While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ, the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel." (17)
"That the Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery." (36)
It would be better to characterize that as a real contradiction and consequently an error, not a divine mystery.

Interestingly enough, the report acknowledged the fact that this view is a departure from tradition:

On the part of many of the Church Fathers the so-called replacement theory or supersessionism steadily gained favour until in the Middle Ages it represented the standard theological foundation of the relationship with Judaism: the promises and commitments of God would no longer apply to Israel because it had not recognised Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, but had been transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ which was now the true ‘new Israel’, the new chosen people of God.

(17)

The same section goes on to admit the novelty of the Vatican II position:

Arising from the same soil, Judaism and Christianity in the centuries after their separation became involved in a theological antagonism which was only to be defused at the Second Vatican Council. With its Declaration "Nostra aetate" (No.4) the Church unequivocally professes, within a new theological framework, the Jewish roots of Christianity.

It should be interesting to listen to the various attempts to deal with this from various "conservative" RC groups.

Possible ideas:

1) It's only a report by a commission, it's not a papal encyclical. Therefore, even though it's on the Vatican website, it's not "really official."
2) The old standby, "well, this isn't ex cathedra."

1 comment:

As a Traditional Catholic (not sedevacantist, however), I would say that the Conciliar church (including both Vatican II and Conciliar Popes) has definitely departed from many of the Catholic Church's true teachings, one of them being the true Christian doctrine regarding the Jews. The Jews no longer possess their own covenant with God (aside from the New Testament -- i.e., the Old Covenant is no longer in effect), they are no longer God's chosen people (except for those who have faith in Christ, in which case they are part of the New Israel, the Church), and they cannot be saved unless they belong to the Catholic Church, either as members ("in re") or individuals joined to Her by desire ("in voto") (cf. Bellarmine, "De Ecclesia Militante," cap. 2; "De Baptismo," lib. 1, cap. 6).

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